Journal des probiotiques et de la santé
Libre accès
ISSN: 2329-8901
ISSN: 2329-8901
Christian Mugabo*, Emmanuel Muragijimana
Background: Antibiotics merge among the frequently prescribed medications for children in Rwanda and even worldwide. Recently, however, there was seen an uncontrolled rise in antimicrobial-resistant infections following costs. Methodology: A retrospective study was conducted to determine the frequency of antibiotics use during the treatment of infections or diseases of pediatric patients who attended Rwamagana Provincial Hospital with involvement of antibiotics. Medical records or files of 300pediatric patients who attended the stated hospital between 1st January 2016 and 28th February 2017 were scientifically reviewed and analyzed using licensed software such as SPSS Results: The study included 300 pediatric patients. This population is made of more male patients gender 155 (51.7%) than females 145 (48.3%). The mean (average) age of this population was 3.0 years (±3.1). The most prevalent diseases was malaria (19.1%) followed by sepsis (7.6%), and the frequently prescribed single antibiotics were ampicillin (37.1%), followed by the third generation, Ceftriaxone (25.2%), whereas ampicillin and gentamycin (46.5%) are the mostly used antibiotics from the different groups or classes, followed by ampicillin and chloramphenicol. However, ampicillin and amoxicillin combination (16.6%) is the mostly used combination of two antibiotics from the same group. Conclusion: There is a high frequency use of antibiotics as shown by the results of this study. Pediatric patients of age ranging between one and five were prescribed the higher percentage of antibiotics compared to patients of age groups below one year and those between six and twelve years, which requires big attention, focus and strategies to limit and control the use of antibiotics in this age group in pediatric patients. Penicillin group mainly, ampicillin was the most frequently prescribed followed by cephalosporin group mostly Ceftriaxone, then Cefotaxime as a single drug therapies and most preferred in combination with other antibiotics. Malaria was the most prevalent disease and the main cause of most of hospitalized patients, followed by pneumonia. Our study could add a contribution leading to improvement in antibiotic prescription pattern in pediatric department guidelines setting and implementation by the hospital. Keywords: Probiotics; Immunity; Beneficial microorganism; Health; Gut microbiota;